Aurelia Butler

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    Popcast (Deluxe): How Kendrick Lamar Out-Drake’d Drake

    Subscribe to Popcast!Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | YouTubeThis week’s episode of Popcast (Deluxe), the weekly culture roundup show on YouTube hosted by Jon Caramanica and Joe Coscarelli, includes segments on:The back story of the tension between Kendrick Lamar and DrakeThe early songs: “First Person Shooter,” “Like That” and “7 Minute Drill”Drake responds: “Push Ups” and “Taylor Made Freestyle”Kendrick Lamar responds: “Euphoria” and “6:16 in LA”Drake responds, and shifts the tone of the battle to the personal: “Family Matters”Kendrick responds, upping the personal ante: “Meet the Grahams” and “Not Like Us”Drake bows out?: “The Heart Part 6”How this battle will play out for Drake and Kendrick Lamar as musiciansHow this battle will play out for Drake and Kendrick Lamar as peopleA snack of the week, chat about TikTok, “Challengers” & the most annoying songs of the N.B.A. playoffsConnect With Popcast. Become a part of the Popcast community: Join the show’s Facebook group and Discord channel. We want to hear from you! Tune in, and tell us what you think at popcast@nytimes.com. Follow our host, Jon Caramanica, on Twitter: @joncaramanica. More

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    Why Britain Keeps Giving Classic Movies New Ratings

    As the attitudes of moviegoers evolve, so do the guidelines of the ratings board, which has reclassified dozens of films including “Mary Poppins” and “Rocky.”The British Board of Film Classification has been busy.Last year, the group rerated more than 30 older films to meet contemporary standards. In February, it gave a stricter rating to “Mary Poppins” because of racial slurs. And last week, it began using an updated set of guidelines after surveying thousands of British moviegoers to gauge shifting public attitudes.Based on that survey, the new guidelines acknowledge that audiences have grown more lenient about depictions of cannabis use but are more concerned about intense violence and, for younger viewers, bad language.“We follow what people tell us, and we update our standards as societal attitudes change,” said David Austin, the board’s chief executive.When distributors rerelease movies in theaters, on streaming services or on DVD, they may be required to resubmit the films to the ratings board. Many voluntarily choose to do so, Austin said, in hopes of receiving a lower rating or to ensure that the rating matches the content. What was once considered acceptable onscreen may no longer be.Under the newest guidelines, the board said, both the 2018 Transformers movie, “Bumblebee,” and the 1963 James Bond classic, “From Russia With Love,” would be rated 12A instead of PG if they were resubmitted for updated ratings.(The ratings for theatrical releases are U, for universal; PG, for parental guidance; 12A, 15 and 18, for certain age restrictions; and R18, for pornographic content.)We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Israel’s Eurovision Entrant Faces Down Her Critics

    Campaigners have unsuccessfully urged the Eurovision Song Contest to ban Eden Golan because of her country’s war in Gaza. “I won’t let anything break me,” she said.Taking part in the Eurovision Song Contest is nerve-racking, even when the audience welcomes you to the stage.For one singer at this year’s contest, it will likely be a particularly anxious experience. When Eden Golan, 20, performs representing Israel at the second semifinal on Thursday, a significant portion of the audience will not be cheering for her. In fact, many people don’t want her country to be at Eurovision at all.For months, pro-Palestinian groups and some Eurovision fans have been trying in vain to get the contest’s organizers, the European Broadcasting Union, to ban Golan from taking part at this year’s event in Malmo, Sweden, because of Israel’s war in Gaza.Those protests were particularly vocal after the title of Golan’s entry was announced in February: “October Rain,” an apparent reference to last year’s Hamas attacks, in which Israeli officials say about 1,200 people were killed and 240 taken hostage. The European Broadcasting Union objected that the title and some of the song’s lyrics were overly political, and asked Israel to change them. Golan tweaked the song, which is now called “Hurricane.”Golan with members of her team at a recording studio in Tel Aviv last month.Amit Elkayam for The New York TimesEurovision’s organizers have always insisted that the contest is no place for politics, and this year is clamping down on slogans and symbols that could stir up dissent. Bambie Thug, representing Ireland, said at a news conference on Tuesday that, after a dress rehearsal, officials had demanded that the singer remove pro-Palestinian slogans from an outfit.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    ‘Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes’ Review: Hail, Caesar

    The latest installment in an excellent series finds mythology turning into power.For a series with a goofy premise — what if talking apes overthrew humanity — the “Planet of the Apes” universe is uncommonly thoughtful, even insightful. If science fiction situates us in a universe that’s just different enough to slip daring questions past our mental barriers, then the “Apes” movies are among the best examples. That very premise, launched with talking actors in ape costumes in the 1968 film, has given storytellers a lot to chew on, contemplating racism, authoritarianism, police brutality and, in later installments, the upending of human society by a brutal, fast-moving virus. (Oops.)Those later virus-ridden installments, a trilogy released between 2011 and 2017, are among the series’ best, and well worth revisiting. The newest film, “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes,” picks up exactly where that trilogy left off: with the death of Caesar, the ultrasmart chimpanzee who has led the apes away from what’s left of humanity and into a paradise. (The scene was a direct quotation of the story of Moses leading the Israelites to the Promised Land, but dying before he could set foot there.) The apes honor his memory and vow to keep his teachings, especially the first dictum — “ape not kill ape.” Caesar preached a gospel of peacefulness, loyalty, generosity, nonaggression and care for the earth; unlike the humans, they intend to live in harmony.The teachings of peaceful prophets, however, tend to be twisted by power-seekers, and apparently this isn’t just a human problem. “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes,” directed by Wes Ball from a screenplay by Josh Friedman, leaps forward almost immediately by “many generations” (years matter less in this post-human world), and the inevitable has happened. The apes have fractured into tribes, while Caesar has passed from historical figure to mythic one, a figure venerated by some and forgotten by most.That there even was a Caesar is unknown to Noa (Owen Teague), a young chimpanzee whose father, Koro (Neil Sandilands) is leader of his clan and an avid breeder of birds. That clan has its own laws, mostly having to do with how to treat birds’ nests, and that’s all that Noa and his friends Anaya (Travis Jeffery) and Soona (Lydia Peckham) have known.But then one day tragedy strikes, in the form of an attack on the clan by the soldiers of Proximus Caesar (Kevin Durand), the leader of a clan of coastal apes. Noa finds himself alone, searching for his clan, who have been carted away. On his journey Noa meets a human (Freya Allen) who, like the other humans, doesn’t speak.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Neil Portnow Accuser Asks Court to Dismiss Her Sexual Assault Lawsuit

    The woman, who sued the former head of the Grammy Awards anonymously, expressed concern that her identity would be revealed in the proceedings.A woman who filed a lawsuit accusing Neil Portnow, the former head of the Grammy Awards, of drugging and raping her in a New York hotel room has asked a federal judge for her case to be dismissed.The request by the woman, who filed her suit anonymously in November, was addressed to Judge Analisa Torres of Federal District Court in Manhattan over the weekend via email, and it was posted on Monday to the court’s website. Days before, her lawyers had opposed a statement by Mr. Portnow’s lawyers to require the woman to use her real name in the case.In her letter, the woman made clear that she was concerned about her identity being revealed. She also noted a dispute with her lawyers. Despite their opposition to Mr. Portnow’s request, she wrote that her lawyers’ filing “did not accurately reflect my position.”Also on Monday, her lawyer, Jeffrey R. Anderson, filed a motion to withdraw as her counsel. Mr. Anderson said she had submitted the letter without his knowledge, and that “the attorney-client relationship has deteriorated beyond repair.” Reached by phone on Tuesday, Mr. Anderson declined to comment.The woman’s lawsuit, originally filed in New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan, arrived as a legal window in New York was drawing to a close that had allowed people to file civil suits alleging sexual assault even if the statute of limitations for their cases had expired. The case was removed to federal court in January.The woman, who was identified in her suit only as a musician from outside the United States, said she met Mr. Portnow, then the chief executive of the Recording Academy, at a Grammy event in New York in early 2018. According to her complaint, that June he invited her to a Manhattan hotel room where he was staying. He gave her wine and she lost consciousness, according to the suit, and the woman said that she awoke to find him “forcibly” penetrating her.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Dan Stevens and the Allure of Kooky Characters

    Despite his “Downton Abbey” roots, the co-star of “Godzilla x Kong” and “Abigail” likes the kind of role “that makes the filmmaker smile.”The kookiest characters onscreen this season may be the ones played by Dan Stevens.This batch of charismatic weirdos joins the collection of peculiar roles he has amassed since the 2014 thriller “The Guest,” his post-“Downton Abbey” breakthrough. Stevens, 41, lands somewhere between leading man and character actor, and he revels in the mischievous tone required for these offbeat parts, some of which he describes as “funcomfortable.”Right now in theaters he can be seen as a winning monster veterinarian in “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire” and as a corrupt cop turned bloodsucker in the horror comedy “Abigail.” This summer, he will appear in “Cuckoo,” a sci-fi horror mash-up set in the Alps, in which he plays a German scientist whose welcoming facade hides a fascination with a bizarre endangered species.Stevens with Rebecca Hall and Kaylee Hottle in “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire.”Legendary EntertainmentStevens, who is British, recently spoke with The New York Times over coffee in the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles. He wore a long-sleeved T-shirt bearing the defining image of “The Holy Mountain,” Alejandro Jodorowsky’s 1973 cult classic: a man seated and wearing a pointed hat, framed by two women. During the interview, Stevens talked about his interest in genre movies and why his goal is always to make a director laugh. Here are edited excerpts from the conversation.I have to ask about your “Holy Mountain” shirt. That’s a great, trippy midnight movie.I’m a huge fan of Jodorowsky. He’s a true visionary dreamer. I absolutely love filmmakers who present you with unforgettable imagery. He’s a common touchstone with a lot of great filmmakers I admire. We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    ‘Time of the Heathen’: Postwar Life and Death, an American Tale

    Newly excavated and restored, Peter Kass’s 1961 movie, full of trippy distortions and grim associations, gets its first New York run at Film at Lincoln Center.Peter Kass’s “Time of the Heathen” is as much artifact as artwork. Symptomatizing both Cold War angst and the birth pangs of the New American Cinema, the movie premiered in late 1961 at the influential film society Cinema 16, where it received mixed reviews and dropped from sight.Newly excavated and restored, Kass’s “psychological drama of guilt and violence” (as it was blurbed at the time) gets its first New York run at Film at Lincoln Center, through May 16.An opening title sets the action four years after the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. A gangly, odd-looking white man identified in the credits as Gaunt (John Heffernan) strides through a generic rural America, Bible in pocket — looking for what?After being questioned by the police, he stumbles across a farmhouse, where we have just witnessed a white man named Ted (Stewart Heller) sexually assault and kill a Black woman, Marie (Ethel Ayler, later to play Clair Huxtable’s mother on “The Cosby Show”), who was a housekeeper for Ted’s father. A xenophobic ornery cuss, Pa (Orville Steward) returns and attempts to frame Gaunt, the haunted loner, who, his life in danger, flees with Marie’s similarly threatened young son, Jesse (Barry Collins), who is deaf and mute.The mood is apocalyptic. (Kass’s title comes from a doomsday passage in the Book of Ezekiel.) Lejaren Hiller’s fanfare-rich score is alternately intrusive and supportive, but Ed Emshwiller’s sharp, inventive cinematography suggests the elemental, visual dramas of a 1920s silent film.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Piano From Titanic’s Sister Ship, Olympic, Awaits an Audience

    A gilt-trimmed upright Steinway piano commissioned in 1912 for the ocean liner Olympic is on dry land and ready to be heard again.This article is part of our Design special section about water as a source of creativity.During the Titanic’s maiden voyage, musicians played pianos from Steinway & Sons to entertain passengers with waltzes and opera overtures. A twin of one of the ship’s Steinway instruments has been found in northern England, and a new nonprofit organization is gearing up to return it to the limelight.The gilt-trimmed walnut upright, now at the showroom of Besbrode Pianos in Leeds, was commissioned in 1912 for the Titanic’s sister ship, the Olympic. It was made by the same craftspeople, and in the same style and materials, as its disintegrated counterparts underwater near Newfoundland. But before its provenance trail was traced in the last few years, “Nobody showed the slightest bit of interest in it,” said Melvin Besbrode, the showroom’s owner.The nonprofit RMS Olympic Steinway Association aims to raise about $125,000 to acquire it and make it publicly accessible. The only other Olympic piano known to survive is a Steinway grand with checkerboard inlays, which the musician Bill Wyman sold through Sotheby’s in 1994 for about $38,000. Its current location is a mystery. “No one can hear it, no one can see it, and we don’t want that to happen again,” said Patrick Cornelius Vida, an Austrian musician who is the association’s president.The Olympic, circa 1911.Popperfoto, via Getty ImagesMr. Vida has made pilgrimages to Besbrode Pianos to bask in the upright’s aura and used it for filmed performances of 1910s music. “It’s stayed within my soul, within my memory,” he said. “It’s a grand old lady who’s young at heart.”The association has made a documentary, explaining that the piano’s “timber, character and tonal quality” are nearly identical to what Titanic passengers heard. When the Besbrode piano was in use for decades aboard the Olympic (which was scrapped in 1935), the passengers included Albert Einstein, Marie Curie, Irving Berlin, Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More